Lately, and by lately I mean in the past year or two, I have begun to feel some distance between us.  There is the physical distance of not being near each other as much anymore, but there is also the distance that remains when we happen to be near, in person or over the phone.  I feel like you have put this distance between us.  But who did what does not have any significance to me.  There are two sides to every relationship and I realize that I must have had an equal part to play.  But I feel as if I have been misunderstood.  That is okay.  I have misunderstood and will continue to misunderstand myself.  I hope that I can now explain myself.

We all live our own lives.  We each will have to individually leave this Earth when we have to.  We will do this alone.  Consequently, only we as individuals can tell ourselves how we want to lead the life that we have.  I have spent and continue to spend a lot of my time thinking about how to live my life best.  Thinking about… knowing that I will one day die, how will I have liked to have spent my moments here?  In answering this question I have needed to ask myself others.

Who am I?  What do I value?  What am I passionate about?  What makes me happy?  What makes me unhappy?

As I answer these questions, my life has changed and will continue to change.  I have manifested and will continue to manifest my life through my thoughts and my energy.  As we all do.

We were all once younger and more together.  Our lives afforded us that.  We had amazing times together that we all still love and cherish.  These times happened often.  We were younger and even more inexperienced in our lives and our greatest joy was simply experiencing and learning together.  So we did all of the same things.  Had all of the same hobbies, desires, strengths, and vices.  And there could be no suspicion of judgement because we all did it together.

As I have grown older I have realized that I face death everyday.  Every moment is precious and I want to live it to MY fullest. Because of this, you may have noticed some changes in me.  We now have different hobbies, different desires, different strengths, and different vices.  This is where I think the distance has been created.

We are all different.  We each have our own experience.  I know myself and my own life and I am in a position to judge Things for myself.  I am able to judge whether I want certain things in my life.  For example, certain Things (among many) that I have let go, as everyone reading would know, would be eating animal products, smoking cigarettes, excessive (or what I deem, and this is only I that deems it so) partying, consumerism, grudges or hatred in any form, judging others, and negativity.

I have passed judgement on these things.  I have.  For Myself.  Knowing that I, Jacob O’Connor, will one day have to face death, I judge these things as ill ways to pass my time.

But I must confess further.  As we are all human, I believe that we are so spiritually similar.  We are spiritual beings.  I also judge these things to be ill ways for All humans to pass the time we have here.

Here is where I think the distance is.

Firstly, the proximal or more superficial distance.  I am not seeing you as much as I used to.  This is the manifestation of our differences as people and what we want in our lives.  It started when I decided to leave Ottawa and come to Toronto.  I was looking for and valuing something different.  I didn’t value financial and emotional safety.  I wanted to learn and I wanted to grow.  For my friends in Ottawa, that has put miles between us.  For those here in Toronto, we manifest through our thoughts what we do with our lives.  If I am not seeing you as often, it is because we value and think about different things.  This has nothing to do with what I think of you or what you think of me.  I understand that.  I hope you do too.  Once again, we face death alone and so we all need to choose how we live our lives.  I respect that.

Next, the more real distance.  I think that my life choices (and obvious judgement of certain things that these choices imply) may have led you to believe that I may judge you or think myself above you.  This is absolutely not the case.  Absolutely not. Absolutely not.  Absolutely not.  I had to repeat it three times.  Absolutely not.  Four.  Just as I only have the right to choose how I live my life, you only have the right to choose how to live yours.  I completely respect that right.  I also know that we are all different and that we all are going to live our lives differently.  That is 100% certain.  The choices I make about my life have no impact on how I feel about you.  I love each and every one of you unconditionally.  Unconditionally.  When I say unconditionally I do not only mean regardless of what you do to yourself, but regardless of what you do to me or others I love.  I love you all no matter what you do.  I may not judge the Things you Do to be right for me.  I may not judge the Things you Do to be right for humans in general.  But I will never judge you and I will always love you and be here for you.

I hope you all understand.